Heat Stress Mitigation with Fogging System of Anatolian Water Buffaloes

Abstract

This research was carried out to investigate the possibilities of removing the heat stress that mayoccur in Anatolian water buffaloes with a fogging system and to determine the cooling efficiencyof the system. In this context, two 24-headed groups were formed among the water buffaloes thatwere considered to have the same genetic similarities, were born in the same period and have thesame lactation number. One group was housed under controlled shelter conditions (Shelter-I), wherethe ambient temperature can be controlled, and the other group was housed in existing farmer-raising conditions (Shelter-II). The same feed rations were applied to both buffalo groups. Thecooling efficiency of the fogging system established in Shelter-I was between 45.6% and 85.7%positive. Temperature-Humidity Index values changed between 19.9 and 23.1 in Shelter-I and 19.5and 26.4 in Shelter-II according to the maximum average data. According to these values, the levelof stress in Shelter-II has reached very serious levels and affected the milk yield of buffaloesnegatively. The corrected 305-day lactation milk yields were calculated as 1965.4 kg in Shelter-Iand 1757.1 kg in Shelter-II. The differences between all data obtained for Shelter-I and Shelter-IIwere found statistically significant